Unconscious Creatures
The unconscious creatures include minerals and plants. They are considered as living organisms because they show certain form of life; they grow and die away. They are protected by a law according to which they do not suffer when their bodies are being hit even if this may cause them death or decay. Namely, they do not have souls which live through emotions. When some people are able to speak with trees and plants they do not talk to them but to creatures who live there.
Among unconscious creatures are also animals - they form a higher section of this category. They have souls and therefore, they also feel the pain. They submit instinctively to the law of killing when killing a prey. This means that they use the most considerate way of killing for each species in order that the prey may suffer as little as possible. After its death the animal does not feel the shredding and devouring of its body. Man should seriously think about this law and obey it when killing animals because by its ignoring he must bear consequences either in the form of an illness or a hard death.
Animals have the group soul. Unlike the human soul the group soul splits up after death into original elements assembling in the accumulation of homogeneous species from which a new animal soul arises.
However, an animal living in the close proximity of man which adhered to him by devoted love does not lose the entirety of its soul; it remains in its original form and incarnates again with other qualities. This is the accelerated maturation because everywhere the effort for the development from unconscious to conscious life predominates.